Four positions

Sanctity of life says preserve the corridor wherever the means exist, whatever the operator reads. Right that a life is not a resource to be spent at convenience, and that a hasty exit differs from a considered one. Right that the default is preservation where the reading is unstable or shaped by remediable conditions. Wrong to let the default override the operator’s reading where the closing has been honestly read.

Absolute autonomy says the operator’s authority is complete and the structure merely obeys. Right that override holds at the threshold and no one else can read the corridor for you. Wrong to make the reading the only fact. Whether the corridor can be widened, whether operator and narrator have come apart, whether the floor has been supplied — these are also facts the structure must read.

The slippery slope says the right, once installed, will erode protection for the disabled, the depressed, the inconvenient old. Right that institutions drift under pressure and that anti-capture discipline is required. Wrong to answer drift by refusing the operator’s authority. The answer is to install the authority with its conditions intact and audit the institution.

Palliative sufficiency says the right is unnecessary where care is adequate. Right that the floor transforms the reading at the threshold and that many exit requests are remediable through levels one to four not yet supplied. Wrong to claim it eliminates every case. Some operators, fully supported, stable across time, in line with their whole life’s pattern, will read the closing and commit to it. The structure installs the conditions under which that case can be read honestly.

Four positions. The test is a fifth.

This is the short edition of Ø Applications — a summary. Where a step is compressed here, the original carries it in full. The original book (PDF) · This edition (PDF)

The same page on the420code.org: the420code.org/models/applications/09-end-of-life-care-and-the-right-to-exit/